Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(60)

I held out a picture of a starving dog. “Is it this bad?”

“Gross. No. I guess I’m worrying for nothing?”

“So they aren’t starving. What is the company doing to the animals?”

“They’re experimenting on them.”

“How? Surgery? Cosmetics testing?”

“God yes. The whole place is a lab. They draw blood every week, do X-rays, scans, and when the animals die, there are autopsies. It’s pretty gross.”

I’d seen animals butchered for food. This city girl had no idea what she ate or how it lived or died. As a spy to draw me out, she was useless. I already knew I was better at this than she was. “What about werewolves? There’s rumors in the ASPCA that DNAKeys has paranormals as prisoners.”

“Yeah, they have a few. So what? They aren’t human anymore. Weres’re stark raving crazy and fangheads are dead.”

Which wasn’t exactly true. As a general rule, most were-creatures were only animalistic on the three days of the full moon. Werewolves were the exception to that rule. They were more cursed than the other weres and the females never fully regained their humanity, even on the new moon, but the males still maintained most of their humanity. Vampires were traditionally referred to as the undead, not dead, but I didn’t offer any of that information. I nursed my cooling drink, catching sight of Occam and the waddling dog again. He stopped when another man approached and I watched as the other man took the leash and walked away. Occam tucked his hands in his pockets and sauntered on.

Candace’s espresso came and she sipped. A look of almost religious ecstasy settled on her face. She sipped again with a long slurping sound, cradling the cup in both hands. But there was something false about the action that said this lack of manners was part of an act.

“What’s DNAKeys doing with werewolves and vampires?” I asked finally. “Were-taint is contagious.”

“They have a plan. Or two.” She slurped again and launched into a list that sounded rehearsed. Were-experimentation was for creating supersoldiers, lab work done on the first floor of DNAKeys. Vampire experiments were searching for cures for cancer, for extending the shelf life of vampire blood so it could be used medically, searching for cures for Alzheimer’s, leukemia, and bone and liver cancers. And the vampire testing was on the fourth floor. Conspiracy theories. Every conspiracy trope in the book. Was this meeting nothing more than a chance to secure access to my cell to check me out?

However, I had seen photos of the DNAKeys building. There was no fourth floor. I was about to call Candace on it when she grabbed my hand and squeezed my fingers. Hard. There was something stiff between our palms. “I gotta go,” she said. “But if you can get help for the animals, I’d be really happy.” She grabbed her laptop and left the building so fast I was left with my accusing mouth hanging open. Out the windows I watched as Candace hopped into the backseat of a passing car and drove away. I was pretty sure I had seen the gray sedan twice while we talked, but I wasn’t certain. I glanced around and no one was watching me, so I stood and hid the espresso cup with my body. Using a paper napkin I picked it up and slid it into the oversized bag. For fingerprints.

Just in case I was being observed, I said aloud, “That was weird.” I slung my eggplant-colored bag over my shoulder and walked out of Remedy and down the street, my head bowed against the misty rain.

Occam picked me up in his fancy car and we passed Rick getting into his own—a dull brown SUV with rust along the wheel wells. “That was weird indeed,” Occam said, pulling into traffic and beginning a countersurveillance pattern through the dark. Dusk had come and gone quickly in the cloudy weather.

“Weirder than you know,” I said, placing the cup into an evidence bag and starting a chain-of-custody form. “She, or someone in the coffee shop, was trying to hack my cell the whole time we were together.” I checked my cell. The little light had stopped blinking and a green light told me the attack had been unsuccessful. I had to wonder what the hacker was thinking about a purple-haired woman with an uncrackable phone. I held out my other hand. “And she passed me a note.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. Just like out of a spy movie.”

“A bad spy movie,” Occam said.

“I’ve only seen three, so I’m not one to judge.”

“Only three spy flicks?” He sounded horrified.

“The Accountant, Argo, and Mission: Impossible—the first one.”

“Nell, sugar, we gotta get you educated. In spy movies,” he amended. “You did great in there, by the way.”

I ducked my head to hide my blush.

“Read the note,” he said.

I unfolded the note left by Candace. Who was a fake disgruntled employee, but had passed me a note just like a real disgruntled employee might. This undercover stuff was tricky, twisty, complex, and deceitful. And I liked it.





TEN




I read it aloud. “You passed the test. Meet the real girl at the main library on Church Avenue in thirty minutes. Mary Smith will be in the computer room. Red hair, red plaid coat.”

“So Candace McCrory was a company plant like we thought? But she passed you a note to meet up with someone else? Why?” Occam asked.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Maybe she was an informer and was not an informer at the same time. Someone who believes all the conspiracy theories but is working for the company like a double agent? Or someone who likes playing games? Some of these animal rights people are scary. Not that fighting for animal rights is wrong, but . . .” My words trailed off. True and fanatical believers of anything could be scary. Churchmen. Churchwomen. Terrorists.